D O C U M E N T A T I O N to the ShareWare - Game 'The J.A.R.' ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright-Information: The game 'The J.A.R.' and all files of this game,like graphic datas, are Copyright (c) 1988/1989 by Andreas Ehrentraut. All rights are reserved. Permission is granted to distribute the game and data, provided the fol- lowing conditions are met: 1. All files of the game must be redistributed without changes, incl. this documentation file. 2. The distributor may charge a fee to recover distribution costs, but is not allowed to derive any profit from it. The concrete price for a copy including the disk ought to be less than 6$. Anyway, anybody who gets pleasure from this game ought to send me a con- tribution as he pleases: Andreas Ehrentraut Ku'markt 9 2848 Vechta (Western Germany) How to install the game: It is necessary to install the game on another disk for it takes a lot of memory. Then it is also able to work on 512KB - Amigas with a single drive. To install, 1. FORMAT an empty disk (e.g. using the workbench), 2. enable it to boot from using the INSTALL command (if you have a single drive, copy the command into the RAM, change disks, then type 'ram:install df0:'), 3. COPY all files from the directory to the empty disk, 4. create an S-directory on the startup-disk (MAKEDIR s), 5. RENAME startup-sequence as s/startup-sequence. Then, switch off all external drives of an 512 KB - Amiga and boot the game. About the program: This program may be copied and spreaded, provided that no commercial use of it is made. For I put a lot of hard work in the game (about one year of hard work), I'd like you to contribute me something like 5$ or what- ever it is worth to you. If you add 5$ more for disk and postage and give me your address, I will send you not only the latest version of the program with source code, but also an Scene-Editor which enables you to create new scenes for the game, so that you can take up new challenges again and again. It will make the game a real 'Jump-And-Run Construction Set'. From the source code of the game, which is sized ca. 150 KB and consists of @97% C, @3% Assembler code, an @ 90 KB - executable is compiled by an Aztec C-Compiler, which still contains no graphic data. This version of the game lacks sound-effects especially for memory-space reasons; the need of memory is about 440 KB. By the three-dimensional graphic it occurs that objects in the perspec- tivical background are hidden by those in the foreground of the graphic. Hence, it became necessary to write special Hidden-Area routines which recalculate the shapes of objects every move they make from the heights of the front walls and the shapes of the front objects. Blitter-aided, the Amiga is able to do this in little time, but most games shied away from the inconveniences of programming involved in it so far. So I made the seemingly impossible possible and brought to you the first ever Jump'n'Run making use of real 3d-graphic in larger scale. How to play the game: After the title screen appeared and the graphic data are loaded, it is possible to choose the starting scene in steps of five scenes by moving the joystick vertically. By moving it horizontally, a one or two player game can be selected. Having pressed the fire button of the joystick (in port II), the title screen fades out and the game starts in the chosen scene. The player sprite, of a human shape, appears and can be moved by joystick in the corresponding directions. Now the players' task is to collect the blue pills lying on the walls, not to fall down and to avoid several monsters wandering about. After that, he can get into the next scene by going into the flashing exit. Several aids are available to support the player against the monsters: There are two kinds of weapons lying around, six-guns and hammers, to shoot them or to bash the red monsters and the green worms. If there is no weapon activated, the player sprite will jump when pres- sing the fire button. Of course, there are also ladders he can climb. There is one more thing to take notice of: There are boulders appearing in some scenes that can be pushed around and dashed on monsters. Only the blue ghosts will stand this. The difficulty of the game depends very much on the scenes created in the editor. It increases when no spare guns are scattered about. To leave the game, use the ESC-key in the title screen. Make sure that the disk is not write-protected because hi-scores will be saved.